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Year 2000 International Security Dimension Project Report

Missions the U.S. Military Might Have to Perform

Slide 25 below presents a list of missions we think the U.S. Military could be called upon to perform across the six-phase timeline of our Y2K Scenario Dynamics Grid.  We don't mean--by any stretch of the imagination--to suggest that all of these missions are likely to be performed.  Rather, we're simply hypothesizing what the U.S. Military could be called upon to do if the National Command Authority (e.g., the President) saw reason to respond to any of the particular dynamics listed below with regard to any country or region of the world.  Like the Scenario Dynamics Grid itself, this is another "smorgasbord" listing of possibilities, designed to orient U.S. political-military decision makers as to the potential breadth and scope of the problem.

Along those lines, you'll note that we're not talking here about inter-state wars or full-blown military "sneak attacks."  Instead, our advice is geared more to U.S. Military interventions abroad in states or regions undergoing significant dislocation and dysfunction as a result of the Y2K crisis.  As such, note also that we really haven't ginned up any new or exotic "Y2K missions."  That could reflect the limits of our imagination, but we think not.  Rather, our list speaks to the great breadth of missions that the U.S. Military already undertakes on a regular basis all over the world.  It also reflects the underlying reality  that if Y2K is going to be all about the breaking down of connections and infrastructure, then the military remains--to the extent its own Y2K house is in order--ideally suited to responding to such crises if they are deemed in the national security interests of the United States.

In short, the military (really, all militaries) are built around the principle of making things move and work under conditions of great environmental distress (i.e., war) or where infrastructure is lacking (i.e., remote or austere locations).   Of course, given the logical localizing effect of any significant Y2K unfolding (i.e., communities cut off from one another and outside help in general), local resources will be the key--thus the useful emphasis on grass-roots responses wherever possible.  Just as obviously, we note that, in the grand scheme of all things global (such as Y2K), militaries in general represent a relatively scarce resource that should only be used in a strategic fashion.  Simply put, militaries in general, much less the U.S. Military, cannot be the cure for whatever ails the world as a result of Y2K.  This resource represents but one of many social assets that can be applied to triage what may turn out to be a very broad and interconnected problem.
 
 

So, if Y2K turns out to be significant and long-lasting in the manner suggested by our six-phase scenario time line and associated dynamics, we foresee ten mission categories possibly arising:

• Y2K Intelligence Preparation of the "Battlefield" (Network/Business/Social Response-Mania/Countdown) refers to the normal pre-crisis/conflict gathering of information relevant to possible downstream missions.  As such, any CINC is likely going to want to know the answers to four essential questions:
  • Which countries in my AOR (Area of Responsibility) are most vulnerable to Y2K?
  • How may the U.S. Military intervene most effectively to help nation states restore network operations?
  • Who may seek to take advantage of Y2K to pose security threats to U.S. interests in the region?
  • How much may Y2K be "worth" to the United States in this region?  And what are we as a nation willing to pay for it?
• Logistic/Network "Tiger Teams" (Network-Onset) refers to sending specialized personnel into a particular country to help authorities bring crucial network nodes and/or facilities back online during the onset of the Y2K event.  Since such assets are typically scarce resources, any such efforts are likely to be focused on host nations where U.S. military bases are located so as to ensure sufficient infrastructural support to allow continued operations.  Beyond that we're talking about either key strategic allies or key network junctures that support the global economy--usually one and the same.
• Freedom of Navigation/Escort Operations (Network-Peak/Exit) refers to role the military can play in providing security for the transport of essential resources during periods of crisis when criminal or rebel elements tend to be more bold.  As we've learned in previous interventions abroad during Complex Humanitarian Crises such as Somalia in the early 1990s, it's not enough to guard relief supplies at key nodes (usually metropolitan centers).  You also have to provide security as they are transported between key nodes, for it's there where the pirates, bandits, mafia or rebels tend to lurk, thus exacerbating the already bad resource strain.
• Complex Humanitarian Emergencies, or CHEs (Business-Onset/Unfolding/Peak) refers to a total breakdown of the civilian economy and the resulting loss of social and political control by authorities, otherwise known as a "failed state."  What happens here is typically the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Private Voluntary Organizations (PVOs) of the international relief community come to the fore and administer broad-scale relief, while the U.S. Military or United Nations Peacekeeping forces provide infrastructural assistance (e.g., logistics, essential security, basic government services) designed to help local authorities "get back on their feet" and resume political control over a reasonably stable economic and social situation.
• Show of Force (Social Response-Onset) refers to prepositioning of military assets or troops at any location within a CINC's AOR so as to signal U.S. resolve regarding, and the capacity for responding to, threats to U.S. national security, to include threats to friendly or allied governments. This is obviously a tricky thing to figure out beforehand with Y2K, because it won't necessarily be clear which situations of value to the U.S. will be threatened by Y2K, or when.  Nonetheless, certain key relationships or situations are routinely identified as possessing high U.S. national security value, and these are likely to receive special attention as the 010100-threshold approaches.
• Medical Support (Social Response-Unfolding) refers to the Iatrogenic dynamic by which ordinary people do stupid things under conditions of duress and end up hurting themselves in significant numbers, either by injury, the spreading of disease, or poor responses to physical deprivations brought about by network failures.   Obviously, we're talking here about situations of sufficient scope to overwhelm local medical response capacity, which, in many nations around the world, is rather limited in comparison to the United States.
• Chapter 7 Humanitarian Interventions (Social Response-Peak) refers to the potential for Scapegoating during the worst periods of any Y2K event, and the potential for military interventions designed to protect the targeted demographic group by either providing safe havens or repelling/disarming those inflicting the violence. This can range from spontaneous riots to top-down directed efforts at ethnic cleansing.  Along these lines is the potential for certain governments or political movements to target members of opposition groups opportunistically in conjunction with the Y2K event.
• Military-Military Programs (Governance-Mania) refers to the typical U.S. military cooperation with foreign militaries that we conduct on a regular basis around the world, with the notion here being that such activity should be focused on raising local military awareness of the possible Y2K scenario dynamics that may arise in any one nation or region.  Likewise, if any CINC engages in training and/or exercises for the 010100-turnover, serious consideration should be given to including as many allied militaries as possible within any AOR.  In short, outreach ends on 010100, so it's use or lose it.
• Information Warfare/Defensive (Governance-Countdown) refers to protecting the critical information infrastructure of the United States and its military/diplomatic facilities around the world against the First Strike potential of those elements that would mark the 010100-threshold by engaging in protests or criminal or terrorist acts.  Obviously, the U.S. Military must be most concerned with maintaining its own capacity for tracking events globally, for once lost, our collective ability to manage any subsequent crises evaporates.  Once secured, though, any capacity we may offer to allies and friendly regimes in terms of facilitating their own defenses against such attacks represents a significant value added to international security during this potential global crisis.  Likewise, this experience may end up telling us much about what the U.S. may be able to offer allies in the future under the rubric of an "information umbrella" akin to the nuclear umbrella of the Cold War era.
• Counter-Terrorism/Crisis Response (Governance-Onset) refers to standard counter-terrorist operations and generic crisis response capabilities every CINC possesses.  The key issue here is not how to apply these assets, but where, when and why?  Other than the obvious threat to U.S. citizens and facilities abroad, the trick will be in determining which situation is worthy of a U.S. response, and which should be allowed to play out under strictly local conditions involving local players--a sort of "let it burn" strategy.  What will be unclear during the 010100 transition is whether any outbreak of terrorism or crises represents a one-shot deal, or the beginning of a lengthy wave that will feed off a subsequently significant unfolding of the Y2K Event.  If the former holds true, then any 010100-centered outbreak would logically be dismissed as so much "white noise" associated with the Millennium Date Change Event, with U.S. assets better held in reserve for other, possibly far larger crises.  If the latter were true, then an early-on blunting of such activity could prove decisive in the end.
• Non-Combatant Evacuation Operations, or NEOs (Governance-Unfolding) refers to the evacuation of U.S. citizens from foreign countries when broad-scale threats arise as to their safety.  With regard to the Y2K scenario, this corresponds to the dynamic of Backlash that may unfold as Y2K's breadth and depth become more apparent and people grow angry with authorities for not preparing better, not telling them more in advance, etc.  Since Y2K is easily identified in many cultures with the United States and the West in general, U.S. citizens and firms operating abroad may make inviting targets for those local elements (either public or private) seeking foreign scapegoats to "atone" for whatever economic or social dislocation results.
• Information Warfare/Offensive, Special Operations Forces, Covert Operations (Governance-Peak) refers generally to the range of extraordinary or special military operations that are logically considered as being "on the table" if U.S. national security interests are subject to grave risk abroad during the height of any Y2K-related political crises.  In essence, if countries of high value or interest to the United States are experiencing a peak-range confluence of Y2K-triggered dynamics as described by our model, it's only reasonable to expect that we'd consider using such extraordinary instruments of influence.

Again, looking over this list of possible missions, one is tempted to wonder whether or not we've lent too much drama to the Y2K Event. But understanding our goal of thinking through the permutations of a significantly disabling global unfolding of Y2K, we come away from the list less impressed by what we've included that what we've left out: specifically combat operations associated with a major regional contingency.  While there's nothing to say that a major regional contingency (also known as a war) can't happen during the Y2K Event, we note that even this stressing rendition of a generic Y2K scenario doesn't easily lend itself to contemplating such large-scale scenarios.  To repeat, Y2K impresses us as a localizing phenomenon more likely to create civil strife and internal breakdown in political order rather than trigger inter-state conflict.  To the extent this is true, U.S. Military operations in response to Y2K-related crises abroad will fall wholly under the rubric of Military Operations Other Than War (MOOTW), meaning that if Y2K represents a harbinger of global systemic crises of the 21st Century, it may represent a significant reordering of U.S. Military force structure and operational priorities.
 

Primary Tasks, Strategic Choices, and Key Uncertainties

Slide 26 below presents a CINC-specific version of the Scenario Dynamics Grid which focused on the primary task CINCs face in each scenario phase, plus the main strategic choice and key uncertainty each faces in making that choice.  Obviously, we presume a lot here, as any CINC is going to understand his AOR a lot better than a bunch of academics sitting in Rhode Island.  But, going with the proposition that it's always easier to respond to a straw man than gin up ideas from scratch, we toss this CINCs' Scenario Strategy Grid out on the table to start the conversation.
 
 

In the Mania Phase, we see the primary task as Update existing plans.  Again, our list of "Y2K missions" is fairly standard, and there's almost nothing we can tell a CINC about doing any of those tasks better.  What we think needs to be done, though, is a review of the extant plans--a scrubbing, if you will--to take into consideration the environment within which those standard missions may occur.  So while the plans may largely remain the same, the execution may differ somewhat during the Y2K event due to the dynamics we presented earlier, not to mention the Y2K vulnerabilities faced by the military itself, especially in the area of host-nation support.

The strategic choice here is the Degree of outreach, meaning how much does the CINC open up to countries (both friendly and not-so-friendly) within his AOR regarding the common and individual security challenges they may face in the coming months?  As with any position of high authority, this is a very tricky question that involves walking a fine line between motivating your audience and scaring them into either misdirected action or inaction.  Probably the stickiest issue here involves the sharing of information or intelligence, for, as with so many aspects of the Y2K Event, this particular issue will tell us much about the price of secrecy and the promise of transparency.

Finally, the key uncertainty here is the typical $64,000 question: how vulnerable is the AOR?  Our back-of-the-envelope analysis suggests the following:

• EUCOM probably faces the least challenge of the four warfighting CINCs, since Europe as a whole probably does fairly well.
• SOUTHCOM faces some real challenge, because several countries in Latin America may do quite poorly, although the security risk here will be low and the focus on relief support.
• PACOM faces even more challenges, because many large economies in Asia may do quite poorly, and because there are key security tensions in the region (e.g., Koreas, Pakistan-India, Indonesia).
• CENTCOM probably faces the biggest challenge of the four warfighting CINCs, since the Mideast as a whole has done poorly in Y2K remediation and is quite vulnerable in terms of having centralized, monoculture economies paired with relatively authoritarian political regimes.

Clearly, the CINCs need to do everything they can to ramp up their level of awareness regarding key individual countries within their AOR in the time remaining.

In the Countdown Phase, we see the primary task as Exercises and ramping up Command and Control focus regarding Y2K.  Obviously, command personnel in the AOR field need to be up to speed as the 010100-threshold approaches, and whatever efforts can be made to train the HQ command staff that will be on hand for the first few weeks of 2000 will probably pay off.  In short, no command personnel should enter the Y2K Event without receiving an immersion in the range of potential situations and dynamics they could face--thus avoiding the utterance, I had no idea it was going to be like this!

The strategic choice here is the Force Posture question, meaning does the CINC want his forces spread out across the AOR in anticipation of the 010100-threshold, or does it make more sense to have the forces pulled in and ready to move out in whatever direction seems most appropriate once Y2K begins to unfold?  A big factor here, obviously, is that nature of the CINC's trust in his own networks, i.e., the more vulnerable he feels, the more likely he is to keep forces closer in to HQ and vice versa.  Then there's the issue of raising expectations by forward presence, and the possibility that moving forces after 010100 could create tensions in those areas of departure (i.e., Why are you leaving us and going over there?).  Clearly, this is a very tricky subject full of political-military nuances.  Finally, there's the issue of whether any special force posture can be justified, given the overall lack of knowledge as to how Y2K will unfold.  In short, any force posture is likely to be off-base in some unforeseeable manner.

The key uncertainty here is the politically-charged issue of the CINCs' ability to access specialized reserves and National Guard forces for duty overseas.  Therefore, as resources go, it quickly becomes a homeland vs. CINCs dynamic.  Naturally, National Authority Command decision making will favor the U.S. domestic scene over the international scene, thus the capacity of state governors to tie up such personnel through the first days of 2000 is a given.  The big question here is how long will it take for the U.S. to become comfortable enough with Y2K in the domestic arena to allow CINCs' access to these personnel for employment overseas, where their specialized skills may be crucial to many of the missions listed above.

In the Onset Phase, we see the primary task as Intelligence regarding Y2K's unfolding, with the obvious question being, What's going on that we can definitely link to Y2K?  So it's not only understanding the breadth of activity across the AOR (something the CINC's staff performs on a routine basis), but also the capacity to disaggregate Y2K-direct failures from fellow travellers, secondary and tertiary cascading failures, and then also the iatrogenic factor of "people doing stupid things under stressful conditions."  The only useful rule of thumb we think we can offer here is as follows: treat clearly identified Y2K "disease" wherever it triggers significant security problems, otherwise concentrate on "symptoms" of distress and assume the private sector will deal with the "disease."

The strategic choice here is the Move vs. Wait question, meaning when does the CINC--in conjunction with NCA directives, naturally--know enough to move ahead and assume a proactive posture.  At first glance, the answer may seem obvious, as in "move when you see a problem you can deal with!"  But given the fact that the 010100-threshold may represent only a small fraction of Y2K's ultimate unfolding (only 10 percent, according to the Gartner Group), there's a clear disutility to responding too frantically to the "opening shots" of what may be a far larger "conflict."  Certainly, the CINC must feel confident that his own house is in order before doing anything, and how long it takes to ascertain that is not easy to predict.   But once beyond that threshold, the move-vs-wait question looms very large as a national security issue--one we must essentially resolve "in the dark" until we come to a clear consensus as to how much Y2K is worth to U.S. foreign policy.

The key uncertainty here highlights the difficult of the move-vs-wait issue, for no matter when the CINC and NCA decide to move ahead to deal with whatever Y2K-related crises arise in any AOR, no one can be sure how many Unknown Unknowns are still out there.  In effect, once military forces leave the security of the base or garrison, they enter into the larger process of Y2K's unfolding on the international scene and thus become caught up in the larger dynamics they seek to mitigate or mollify.  A force in reserve represents an asset, whereas a force incapacitated in the field represents a liability.  Once committed to the open playing field of Y2K, it may be quite difficult to "turn back the clock" and resume any pre-game position.  So while some may argue, "use it or lose it" on the employment of military forces in response to Y2K, the counter-argument may be made that, "once you use it, you may lose it."

In the Unfolding Phase, we see the primary task as Consequent Management of whatever political-military crises erupt and meet the NCA's criteria for response.  Again, we see the CINC conducting standard missions under non-standard conditions.

The strategic choice here is the Triage questions of what and where?  Any such thinking along these lines depends heavily on how the U.S. values Y2K in the aggregate sense--namely, what is Y2K worth to the U.S.?  Without a sense of the aggregate value of Y2K, prioritizing individual crises in the manner of triage becomes difficult, unless we simply fall back on the notion that our allies come first, our friends second, and our non-friends last.  However, a wholesale borrowing of the national security template for implementing Y2K crisis response may well prove to be misguided for anything other than maintaining our current security relationships around the world--i.e., it may poorly capture our long-term economic security concerns surrounding Y2K's ultimate impact.

The key uncertainty here is Troop Morale.  For example, suppose Y2K's immediate unfolding in the U.S. is minimal and we end up committing forces abroad in crisis response actions stemming from Y2K-related problems.  What might be the effect on troop morale in the field if the situation subsequently deteriorated back in the United States, or, more likely, back at the overseas base?

In the Peak Phase, we see the primary task as Juggling Resources across whatever crisis response missions the CINC might be pursuing across his AOR.  As described in the Scenario Dynamics Grid, we think the military's role as Network Leviathans (i.e., making things move when the usual networks are incapable) may constitute the most crucial impact it can have during the worst points of the Y2K Event.  Thus, in the end, it may be TRANSCOM that turns out to be the most important CINC-dom.

The strategic choice here is the question, How much do you throw in? Again, this choice revolves largely around the question, How much is Y2K worth to the U.S.?  While it's easy to say that Y2K is not a problem the military can "solve," there is the undeniably reality that many states around the world will feel the strong temptation to play the blame game on Y2K, with the United States as the most logical target of anger.  After all, we're the clear global leader in IT, and Y2K is largely of our "creation." After all, if you buy into the notion that a country can take credit for a technological revolution, then you certainly shouldn't be surprised that many might blame that same country for a global technological snafu--especially if it ends up dropping those countries farther back in the economic "race."  Y2K may be a no-win situation for the U.S., thus suggesting a low value be assigned.  But it's likewise also a potentially big loss situation in terms of foreign policy aftermath.

The key uncertainty here is the potential resource competition, CINC vs. CINC, as Y2K reached its peak-level impact.  This would not only entail the competition over scarce resources across AORs, but also the competition between resources for Y2K-related crises versus more traditional fellow travelers that could opportunistically appear during the same time frame.  For example, suppose North Korea attacks South Korea, believing its defense is hobbled by Y2K failures.  Under normal circumstances, that Major Theater War, or MTW, would automatically assume top priority, just as the far smaller Kosovo bombing campaign recently achieved.  Now, it may seem completely reasonable to state that such a scenario should automatically receive top priority, but if the competing broad threat is a global economic meltdown triggered by Y2K, then must that priority status automatically be given over to the Korean scenario?  Or does the Korean scenario immediately fall into some sort of quasi-Cold War domino status, meaning the U.S. must show resolve here lest the world think everything's fair game now that Y2K has turned out to be substantial.  Again, it all depends on how you value Y2K in terms of U.S. short-term and long-term interests.

In the Exit Phase, we see the primary task as the Gracious Hand-off, which basically assumes that the U.S. has engaged in some collection of military interventions and/or missions related to Y2K, and now seeks to disengage itself from the environment following the close of the Y2K Event.  This is nothing more than implementing your exit strategy in a graceful manner, but it does bring up the issue of what would constitute the criteria for ceasing an intervention that was triggered by Y2K-related failures.  For example, if we intervene in a country because the network failures triggered mass unrest, do we leave once the network function is restored, or when the mass unrest dissipates?

The strategic choice here is the question of When to declare victory?  Clearly, this is a crucial choice for the United States Government, for while there will be strong political pressure to declare Y2K "over and done with" domestically as quickly as possible (i.e., we will be on the eve of the presidential primary season), it seems only reasonable to expect that a different calculus may need to be employed regarding overseas situations.  The U.S. will likely be viewed as a "winner" in the Y2K Event, so it's behavior toward so-called Losers will be closely watched by the international community.

The key uncertainty as the Y2K Event wraps up for the CINCs is the amount of damage done to rotation schedules and overall OPTEMPO.  While the civilian world might feel itself justified in luxuriating in some sort of Y2K "hangover" period, the military community will simply resume its normal duties, which, as we'll discuss below, are fairly substantial at this time.
 
 

How Much is Y2K Worth to the U.S.?  Thinking About a Maximum DoD Crisis Load

Table 1 below represents our attempt to develop a back-of-the-envelope measure of how many crises the U.S. Military can handle at the current time.  By developing a sense of how many crisis response "chits" the Defense Department could employ during the Y2K Event, and then noting how many of those are likely to be unavailable due to ongoing operations, we get a sense of how much more the DoD could handle regarding Y2K above and beyond its current activity load.
 
 

Our reasoning here is fairly simplistic.  We started with SOUTHCOM, the smallest of the warfighting CINCs and decided to give them one crisis response chit, which we define as something roughly analogous to Operation Just Cause, or the invasion of Panama to capture Manuel Noriega in 1989.  Given that valuation for SOUTHCOM, we decided to award the remaining CINCs the following number of crisis response chits:

• EUCOM: five
• CENTCOM: four
• PACOM: three.

That gave us a total of 13 crisis response chits of the size of Just Cause.

Next we decided how many of those 13 chits were likely to be available as of 010100.  Despite the continuing activity of SOUTHCOM troops in relief efforts connected with Hurricane Mitch, we felt that this CINC would have its single chit available for use come 010100.

With EUCOM, our sense is that, between the constellation of Balkan operations and its Northern Watch (No Fly Zone) duties in northern Iraq, that CINC's five chits were all likely to be unavailable come 010100, especially given the additional burdens accruing from the ground presence in Kosovo.

With CENTCOM, our sense is that their current conduct of operations involving Iraq takes two of their four chits off the table.

Finally, with PACOM, we foresee all three chits being available at the 010100-threshold, although either a China-Taiwan or a Koreas scenario could easily intervene between now and then.

Add that current level of activity up, and what you see is that, of the 13 possible crisis response chits, the U.S. is likely to have only 6 available as Y2K unfolds.  Speaking geographically, the U.S. is likely to have but one crisis response chit for the Western Hemisphere, roughly two for the Middle East and Africa (thinking of EUCOM and CENTCOM as a whole), and three for all of Asia and the Pacific region. This is a very generous calculation that could easily be criticized as overly optimistic.

What's important to remember about this calculation is as follows: any MTW would automatically eat up the remaining six crisis response chits, meaning a substantial Iraq, Korea, or South Asia scenario--if pursued--would effectively rule out any U.S. Military response capacity for Y2K.   In short, if an MTW scenario rears its ugly head, the U.S. needs to ask itself whether or not such a standard political-military scenario represents a value significantly greater than the aggregate global damage that may be caused by Y2K.  For if the U.S. chooses to pursue an MTW scenario, it will effectively write off Y2K on a global basis as far as any military crisis response is concerned.  In the end, this may be a perfectly reasonable choice, but make no mistake--it is a huge choice fraught with great uncertainty as to the long-term outcome.
 

U.S. Foreign Policy Legacy Scenarios:  Who Feels the Pain?

Slide 27 below presents a rather simple two-by-two matrix that explores the notion of Y2K's legacy for U.S. foreign policy, something that we think the CINCs need to consider as they think ahead on their AOR strategies regarding Y2K crisis management.
 
 

The four legacy scenarios are built off of two very basic questions:

• How bad is Y2K for the U.S.?
• How bad is Y2K for the rest of the world?

In the best outcome (Not So Bad for both the U.S. and World), we predict that Y2K will go down in history as one big Rorschach Test, meaning each country will take from the experience that which serves them best--proximately, a rationalization of their Y2K response strategy and ultimately, a justification of their overall economic development strategy.  For example, for those who prepared much, they'll claim Y2K proved the utility of their proactive approach, while those who prepared little might claim that it was all a big hoax perpetrated by the U.S. in particular or the West and its mass media in general.  By and large though, countries and cultures will emerge from the experience with most of their biases about IT intact (e.g., it's great, it's evil, it's progressive, it's destructive).

In the next best outcome for the U.S. (Not So Bad for U.S. and Bad for the World), we predict that Y2K becomes further evidence in the minds of many around the planet that the U.S. is a bullying hegemon who selfishly looks out for its own interests while trampling those of others.  In effect, the U.S. will Win the Battle, But Lose the Peace.  Y2K will be viewed by many countries that fall further behind in the New Economy race as just another power play pulled off by the United States, wherein our dominance is reasserted in humiliating fashion.  After all, we created the crisis, then somehow managed the solution in such a way as to benefit ourselves while damaging the economies of others.  Our motivations or our efforts in trying to mitigate Y2K's global impact will matter some, but coming on the heels of the Global Financial Crisis of 1997-98, it will seem like every global game is increasingly tilted to the advantage of the U.S. and the disadvantage of emerging economies.

In the next worst outcome for the U.S. (Bad for the U.S. and Not So Bad for the World), we predict that Y2K could trigger a strong isolationist streak in the United States.  By Atlas Shrugged, we suggest that the U.S. would, in a fit of peak, essentially "take its ball and go home," being unwilling to "play" anymore in the global economy in the same free-wheeling and no-holds-barred manner of the 1990s.  In effect, the Y2K Crisis would be a crisis of confidence for the United States, especially since it would catch us so much off guard and challenge all our suppositions that our mastery of the New Economy made us invincible to severe economic downturns.  Of the four legacy scenarios, this one strikes us as least likely, but because that's so, we find it completely plausible given the shock value.

In the worst outcome for all involved (Bad for both the U.S. and World), we predict that Y2K would have posed a horrible dilemma for the United States: either we would have tried to play System Administrator to the world and worked hard to mitigate Y2K's damage around the globe, probably at huge cost to ourselves, or we would have--at some point--thrown in the towel, pulled up the Firewall around our nation, and simply ignored the rest of the world's pain.  The key question here (beside the usual one about "How much is Y2K worth to the U.S.?) is which pathway would be less traumatic?  Trying to play superpower to the world and failing?  Or taking a cruelly calculating stance that says, "sometimes Nature just has to take it's course?"  In effect, our dilemma would be between trying to put out all the fires or just letting them burn uncontrollably, for like a raging forest fire, there may be few reasonable choices in-between.